Stealing Heaven
by Freya Ishtar
Summary: *AU* Kagome thinks it a dream come true when she gets an internship on an archeological dig. She soon finds her life is in another's hands after her professor, Taisho Sesshomaru, becomes possessed by an entity who considers his prize pupil quite the delicacy. *Completed fic; updating weekly, until full story is posted [42 chapters, in all]* (WINNER OF 9 AWARDS, YEARS 2010-2012)
1. Accidental Discoveries

**08/01/16: I apologize to any readers hoping there was new content. The false alarm could not be avoided.**

**I have pulled all chapters of this story for the purpose of editing, polishing &amp; reposting. I've long wanted to revise it into an original fiction work for publication purposes, so cleaning up the current version of the story is the _least_ I can do for its first readers. Due to the story's age, there are many little errors and hiccups that I've wanted to correct for a_ very_ long time. On top of that, I want you guys to have the best, most-polished form of this story in its current, "beta-version", to read and enjoy before I go forward with any attempt at revising it wholly into a publishable, stand-alone, original fiction work.**

**For those who've already read this story, don't worry. There is no 'new content' that you're missing out on if you choose to ignore the reposted chapters. They're really just a cleaner, more fluidly-read version of the same story. I am not pulling the story_ entirely_, keeping this already-edited update of Chapter One posted and rebuilding the fic as the chapters are cleaned up, due to past issues I've encountered with plagiarism and harassment for reposting a fic I'd previously deleted (I am also keeping the full, unedited version of this story posted on Dokuga. com as I go through this process to also avoid the aforementioned problems).**

**For new readers, I will post 1 to 2 updates weekly, figuring in time to work on my current WiPs in the _Harry Potter_ &amp; _MCU_ fandoms, and novels as I fix up _Stealing Heaven_.**

* * *

**Date of original publication: 9/01/10**

* * *

(The title _Stealing Heaven_ actually comes from an old movie, which I haven't seen, I just spotted the title on the cable guide one night and it stuck; explanations for furnished surnames follows the chapter.)

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**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Inuyasha,_ or any affiliated characters.

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**Chapter One**

Accidental Discoveries

"In archeology," the professor began as he strolled to the center of the room. He carried a large, ornately painted vase by its neck and held it up for the students, gathered at desks set in a circle around him, to see. "_This_ is what you're looking for, but . . . ." He let go, the vase shattering into hundreds of pieces as it impacted the tile floor. "_This_ is what you'll find."

In that moment, Higurashi Kagome _knew_ it was going to be her favorite class. She wasn't like the other girls—and even a few of the guys—in the class who hung on every word that tumbled from the lips of their professor, noted archeologist Taisho Sesshomaru, with hearts in their eyes. Campus rumor held that he had European blood, which was how his eyes got their pale-amber coloring. Rumor _also_ held that he'd suffered some horrifying shock at a young age, turning his long, once-dark hair to its current silvery-white hue. Everyone said that rather than aging him, the sharp contrast to his golden-olive skin tone made him appear more youthful.

But Kagome didn't concern herself with rumors. She couldn't care less how old—or in this case, young—their professor actually might be.

This course wasn't a choice she'd made after spotting the handsome scholar strolling across campus during open house week; this was a decision she had made long before she'd even been old enough for college. Kagome was there to _learn_. When she leaned forward in her seat, she did so to better hear what this brilliant person saidying. Her vibrant blue eyes were _never_ on him—and they most _certainly_ had no hearts in them—but on her notebook, as she scribbled down everything he said.

That first day, her gaze had leaped from him to that shattered vase instantly. Her mind began picking apart the rubble to fit the pieces back together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

A semester and a half had passed, and _this_ was the day Kagome had been waiting for—so impatiently that she couldn't help glancing at her watch every few seconds. The professor would dismiss them any second, and still there had been no mention. As she checked for the umpteenth time, she felt a nudge in her side.

Looking from the elbow pulling away from her ribs to the person attached to it, she met the calm brown eyes of her dorm-mate, Ryoushi Sango.

"Will you chill?" the other girl hissed in a barely audible whisper.

Frowning deeply, Kagome nodded. She squared her shoulders and sat back . . . only to hunch over her watch again in less than a minute's passing.

Sango held in a sigh—Kagome's fidgeting was starting to give her a headache.

"Before I dismiss you," Professor Taisho said, and instantly Kagome bolted upright in her seat, folding her hands in front of her on the desk and assuming the picture of the perfect, attentive student. "I would like to talk for a moment about the internships. When you leave, you will find the list of those who've been accepted posted outside the door. I will not hear any arguments if you find that you didn't make the list. All applications were received and weighed against academic performance, legitimacy of your request based on said performance—that's to say how serious_ I_ think you are about pursuing a career in this field—and your essay answers on why you want to participate.

"Now, while 'seeing a Central American sunrise'_ is_ quite poetic . . . ." He paused, straight-faced despite the murmur of laughter that rumbled through the class. "It is not exactly the _reasoning_ I'm looking for. That being said, I would like to apologize to anyone who _should_ be on that list, but is not—I trust you will know who you are. Funding being what it is, there are only a few seats available, and I did have some tough choices to make once it was down to those students that truly deserve to take part. If you are among those who did not make the list, I _am_ sorry—there's always next term's excavation."

A moment later the class was dismissed and everyone was out of their seats to bolt for the door, and—in some cases—the list hanging outside it. Much to Sango's surprise, Kagome wasn't among them. Shouldering her messenger bag and rising from her desk, Sango turned a tight-lipped look on her friend. Kagome was placing her things into her worn yellow backpack at a snail's pace.

"Okay, what gives? You were a basket case _all_ morning waiting to find out, and now that you can have the answer you're practically a statue!"

One corner of Kagome's mouth twitched a little as she zipped her bag shut and pulled it up onto her shoulder. She still didn't stand, her eyes in her lap. "I just . . . . What if I didn't make it?"

A long, unattractive groan forced its way out of Sango's throat. Her head fell back and she dropped herself down into her seat. "Oh, my God! That is_ the_ stupidest thing, ever. You're, like, the _best_ student in this class. I can maybe understand it if _my_ name's not there, but there's no way _you_ are not on that list."

Nervously pushing a wave of long, jet-black hair behind one ear, Kagome spoke with her gaze still averted. "But you heard him—there's no guarantee as to who made the cut."

"If he's as smart as he seems to be—"

"He is," Kagome said, grumbling.

Sango frowned, but nodded. "_If_ he is, then he'd ground his own _assistant_ to make room for a student like you. Now, get your ass up and let's go have a look, okay?"

A long, silent moment crawled by before Kagome gave into a nod. She allowed her friend to pull her up, away from her desk and out the door. When they were at last in the hall, Sango turned Kagome to face the list, only to find the stubborn girl's eyes squeezed shut.

Repressing the urge to utter another ugly groan, Sango flicked Kagome's ear.

Blue eyes snapped open as Kagome let out a gasp, clamping a hand over her ear. "Sango, what the . . . ?" Sango's finger was already on the list, a metallic-purple nail pointing and Kagome couldn't help following it.

Instantly her hand dropped as she stared. Her gaze back and forth across the letters a few times before shrieking excitedly and throwing her arms around her friend's neck.

"Didn't I tell you?" Sango scolded after letting Kagome strangle her for a few seconds. "Guess what?"

Kagome pulled back, her eyes so wide that they looked as though they were about to fall out of her skull. "What?"

Sango pointed to the list again, breaking her usual calm expression to give a bright grin. "_I'm_ going, too!"

There was another round of excited-girl screeches—earning them scowls from passing students—but they managed to collect themselves and focus their attention on the list, once more. On the bottom was bright red scrawl, stating that they would receive confirmation letters via email which would outline suggested travel supplies, necessary vaccinations and any other possible arrangements they might have to make within the six weeks leading up to the summer-long excursion.

Kagome glanced back up at the other names—she'd heard them both in passing, but it was no one she recognized right off the bat.

"Oh, no," she said softly.

"Hmm?" Sango was already linking her arm through Kagome's and steering them in the direction of the dormitories.

"Kikyou didn't make the cut," she replied, blue eyes lowering in guilt.

One look at Kagome's face had Sango shaking her head. "Uh-uh, no—_don't_ do that! You feel bad 'cause you're going and she's not? That's fine, but don't feel like it's your fault, okay?"

Kagome and Nisou Kikyou—both of their grandfathers serving as priests at the same shrine—had been practically glued at the hip all through elementary and junior high. The friendship ended bitterly during high school, when they'd fallen for the same boy. Even after he'd been sent away to live with his mother in America, they had never quite been able to forgive each other—or themselves. Things had mellowed since entering university, allowing them to settle into a slightly more comfortable, yet often no less tense, academic rivalry.

Kagome always secretly hoped that one day things could go back to how they'd once been, but an opportunity to make that hope a reality had simply never presented itself.

She was quiet and miserable for a solid minute before nodding. She might not be responsible in any _actual_ way, but she still felt as if her own name wasn't on that list, there_ would_ be room for Kikyou. "There's always next term," Kagome said, the hollow echo of their professor's words all she could muster, right then.

Sango let it slide—she knew that once this feeling passed, once Kagome started packing and making her medical appointments, she'd again be excited about the adventure that lay ahead of them. "Exactly. Well, unless you bump her off_ that_ list, too."

Kagome laughed in spite of herself. "You can be _so_ mean."

"I do it out of love."

"Uh-huh."

* * *

From the moment they arrived at the site, Kagome _knew_ there was something odd about the area.

The unsettling sensation was nothing tangible, nothing she could put her finger on, but she could feel it in her bones, all the same. She'd seen a location close to here on a television program, but she doubted that had nothing to do with it.

The camp was set in one of only a handful of clearings scattered throughout this section of the rain forest. There were interns from other universities, but not nearly as many as Kagome had expected, which—as it was explained by Professor Taisho in a bored and calm tone that hadn't even required him to lift his nose from the notes he was skimming—was because many of the students wanted to wait for _more prominent_ digs, or for a location like Egypt.

Aside from the students—whom Kagome already knew were to handle all the support work from recording their progress, to cleaning and cataloging artifacts, and even really miniscule tasks, like making coffee—there were two native guides, a translator, a smattering of archeologists and anthropologists and a few assistants that probably all had PhDs of their own, if she was guessing correctly. The only unfortunate occupants were the pair of armed men patrolling the site perimeter.

Kagome was aware they were a necessity, as archeological digs were favored targets for looters, who were typically armed, themselves. Though, the guards very presence was likely to deter any such activity, just seeing them forced that very worry through one's mind, rather than erased it.

The camp was surprisingly smaller set up than what she was expecting, they numbered perhaps twenty in all—including their gun-totting buddies—but even the shortage of people left no room for modesty. Only two stations of portable utilities had been provided, and it wasn't likely they would be designated as gender specific—since Kagome, Sango, and the few other female interns were outnumbered—but rather used on an as-needed basis. The bigger downside however, was that once a week they were expected to pile into a battered pick-up truck and endure a few hours travel over bumpy terrain to reach something that resembled civilization. Once there, they would restock supplies and have an off-site meeting in a local school that had been kind enough to donate the use of a room to the excavation, so they could discuss the dig and what they felt they were learning,

Kagome and Sango felt they were at least lucky in that they were assigned three people to a tent, and their third person was a girl from France with whom they couldn't easily communicate, but seemed very sweet. After unpacking and familiarizing themselves with the camp site, they reported to Professor Taisho, Due to a departure delay, they had been the last group to arrive, and though this only put them a few hours behind, the professor was very eager to catch them up.

With no preamble whatsoever, the moment all of his students, and his assistant, Souryo Miroku, were gathered before him, the man stuffed the notepad from which he'd been reading into a pocket and turned on his heel, striding off into the wilderness. Once out of earshot of the camp, Professor Taisho began explaining the historical significance of the area. Every effort had been made to disturb as little of their surroundings as possible—only the thinnest of paths had been carved out, and only where it had been absolutely necessary, marked by colored arrows adhered harmlessly to the trees.

Kagome had never seen anything so vibrant or colorful in all her life. It seemed like walking through a waking dream. And the _sounds_! So many noises on _so_ many levels, all the time—everything from the buzzing of insects to the chirping of birds and the rustle of herself and her group moving through the jungle. Even the professor's words added to the cacophony, despite the fact that she couldn't make sense of them, just now.

She imagined that if they halted completely and listened hard enough, she might even hear the distant breathing of curious animals watching them.

That thought should be a little more nerve-wracking, she realized somewhat dimly. No doubt that some of those watchful beasts would be predators, but she simply couldn't feel nerve-wracked. There was that sense that was with her . . . sitting in her bones and edging around her brain. This place was somehow a comfort to her, she couldn't begin to think on why, though.

A sudden clicking near her ear broke her reverie and she looked over to see Sango snapping pictures of the barely-visible trail. Miroku was nearly stumbling in his endeavor to keep up with Professor Taisho's long-legged gait, dutifully capturing his boss' lecture on a hand-held recorder. The other two students—a vertically-challenged boy named Tabakaru Shippo, and a feisty girl named Garou Ayame—were scribbling away in notepads as they trudged on, likely jotting down their impressions of the location. Kagome almost felt useless for a moment, but then her sketch pad, pencils and charcoals were in her pack and she wouldn't really have any use for them until they reached the . . . whatever it was. She could _also_ be scribbling in her notepad, but her impressions of the jungle, she thought, were probably harder into words than she'd like.

Professor Taisho still hadn't told them exactly what they'd be working on, only that it was recently discovered. That, and it was a shame that a larger team couldn't be amassed to assist in the excavation.

"What was stopping it?" Kagome asked in a thoughtful mutter, her gaze locked on a colorful bird nested on a branch high above them. The group's movement ceased suddenly and Kagome hadn't even realized until she almost tripped over Shippo.

She looked ahead to find that Professor Taisho had stopped and was looking at her from over his shoulder. Instantly forgetting what she'd been thinking, all Kagome could manage was, "Hmm?"

"Do you have a question, Higurashi?"

Kagome refrained from forcing a gulp down her throat. She abhorred being put on the spot, but she knew that all eyes were on her now; it was either remember what had been going through her head, or let herself feel like a fool for interrupting over nothing. "Um . . . ." Her mind ran through what he'd said in a split-second. "I'm sorry. I was just wondering what was barring this site on from discovery until now?"

Professor Taisho's head tipped to one side in thought before he turned to face them. A corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly as he folded his arms across his chest. "Well, that is a fair question, but I will remind you that pyramids, temple mounds and tribal burial sites are still being uncovered in places where it was previously thought there was nothing. Why should _this_ site be any different?"

For the first time, she found herself grateful for nights when there was nothing to watch on TV but documentaries. "I remember seeing something just last year about The Halls of Lost Records."

Silver eyebrows shot up and there was some definite snickering from the group. Bringing up that particular myth to an archeologist was akin to trying to discuss unicorns with a zoologist.

Understanding how this paltry intro sounded, Kagome forced herself to continue. "Okay, I know that wasn't the_ best_ lead-in, but hear me out. An area not far from where we are now was one of the proposed sites of one Hall, due to some unnatural rock formations that were thought to possibly be land markers. There was a_ legitimate_ expedition undertaken to investigate, and they combed the jungle looking for . . . well, _anything_." She shrugged, "Therefore, whether or not it pertained to their search, I can't help but wonder how they'd have missed something in the area that was of _any_ archeological significance."

Those brows remained raised as the professor nodded and turned back. Starting off again,he called over his shoulder, "Nice bit of accidental research, there. The reason it wasn't found was because the cavern we're going to was submerged until recently. Ground shifts in the aftermath of some of our planets recent earthquakes caused water levels in some areas to recede. What you'll find interesting is that—if testing that's going to be conducted proves me correct—its possible the Mezzo-American tribe that was here used that cavern _because_ it was submerged, or at least a portion of it."

"So they put something were they couldn't even reach it?" Ayame asked in a mixture of uncertainty and disbelief.

"Not that they _couldn't_ reach it," Professor Taisho explained smoothly as the students began to make out a mountainside, its face obscured by plant life that had grown to conceal it long ago. "I believe it was simply to make reaching it more difficult as opposed to an intended impossibility."

"Like a rite of passage, maybe?" Shippo chimed in.

"Precisely."

Shippo beamed while Ayame scowled.

They followed the professor as the path curved left, until they were turned in almost a complete circle to face a cavern that could not be missed as becoming a hole in the ground after venturing the first few yards in. It was foreboding, and that upset Kagome, given how tranquil the rest of the jungle had felt to her.

Everyone was retrieving their lanterns from their packs and she absently scrambled to do the same.

"Can I ask a philosophical question?" she inquired, dropping her voice a little as they proceeded into the damp-reeking darkness.

"I don't see why not."

"Do you think that—?"

"Me, as in doctor of archeology, or me, as in whoever I am outside of my PhDs?"

Confused a little by the question, Kagome glanced at Sango in the sparsely illuminated cavern, who could only shrug and make a _well, go on_ gesture. "I guess both. If humanity's ancestors could bear witness to an archeological excavation, do you think they'd feel honored that we're preserving their memories, or horrified no matter what our intentions and think we're no better than grave robbers?"

The professor paused again, but only briefly, aware that the question also had the girl's classmates and his own assistant thinking about how they would answer. "I believe . . . they'd be disappointed that we'd ever forgotten them, at all."

There was something humbling about that thought. There was no more speaking from anyone as they continued down through a winding tunnel that became increasing dank, the sea-salt in the air thicker and the distant, impossible-seeming sound of lapping water met their ears. Eventually it widened out again and, after a few yards, the group found an enormous cavern opening before them. The professor stayed at the entrance with the students as Miroku moved on ahead.

A few moments of edgy silence passed and then the depths of the cavern became lighter as Miroku flicked on standing lanterns.

"This is what we'll be working on," Professor Taisho said in a quiet, almost awed tone. "And, along with the rest of the team back at camp, we're some of the first people to set foot here in _centuries_."

They faced a massive temple sitting alone on an underground shore. Pitch-black waters lightly touched damp sand and rolled back again. Numbly, Kagome switched off her hand-held lantern and pulled down her pack to get her sketching tools.

She pushed aside how she was feeling . . . as though if she looked away for too long, if she turned her back on it, something was going to come rushing out of that ancient structure and snatch her away.

* * *

It was a few days later—countless sketches had been made, items had been retrieved and cataloged, remote recording devices had been set up inside both the cavern and what parts of the temple had already been surveyed and tedious translations of the text lining the interior walls had begun—when Kagome brought to Professor Taisho the final draft of the temple exterior's rendering. He nodded slowly, making her cringe as he turned the page this way and that before handing it back to her.

"Perfect."

She nodded in response, turning on her heel—it was her time to take over cataloging duties from Ayame—when he called for her attention. "Yes, professor?" she asked politely, turning back with a mystified lift of her eyebrows.

"Are you feeling all right?"

Her gaze darted around for a moment, curious. "Yes, I'm okay. Why?"

The professor frowned—she seemed fine now, yes, but since arriving here, she'd simply not been the same girl who'd been sitting in his classroom all year. "You've been giving off an air of, well, listlessness would be the most fitting way to put it."

Kagome's shoulders slumped. He'd noticed she was distracted? It must have been more obvious than she'd thought, though Sango hadn't mentioned it—but then the other girl was distracted, herself, with Miroku's flirting. "No, I'm sorry, I've just been a little . . . I'll be more . . . ." She didn't even know how to finish the sentence, because she couldn't say for certain _how_ she'd been.

His frown deepened and he took a stack of notes from the folding chair near his and set them on the table. "Please have a seat."

Nodding stiffly, she rolled up the sketch and sat, lightly clutching the page in her hands. She didn't like making a nuisance of herself. The professor should be pouring over artifacts and photographs, not taking his time to deal with her.

"If there's anything at this site that is making you uncomfortable somehow, I would like you to tell me."

"Huh?" Her brow furrowed—did he think she was being bullied or harassed by someone? "No, no." She let out a small, tension-releasing laugh as she shook her head. "It's nothing like that I just . . . I don't know how to say it, except that I almost feel like this place is familiar."

"You feel as though you've been here before?"

She shook her head again. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but—"

"Why?" Professor Taisho asked with a slight shrug.

Again, Kagome was confused. "You . . . believe in past lives, professor?"

He pursed his lips in thought for a moment before replying. "I don't necessarily know that I believe in reincarnation in such strict terms. What I think is that . . . ." He lightly tapped the tips of his fingers against his chest. "_This _is a machine. And like any machine, it takes energy to operate. Energy doesn't die, it only changes forms. When we die, what happens to that energy? Without _actually _having the answer to that question, we can't _actually_ rule anything out. I don't know that it means a person can live more than one life, but what it does mean is that its possible you may have been here before just . . . in a different form."

She nodded slowly, unable to find her voice, at first. "I'll keep that in mind and, again, I'll try to be less distracted. I should go, Ayame's shift is up."

He halted her again as she rose from the chair. "This jungle feels safe to you, then?"

Kagome couldn't help smiling a little as she glanced around at the trees. "Actually, yes."

"But not the cavern?"

"What?"

His frown returned. "When you're in there, you look as though you're expecting something to jump out at you."

"Oh." She lowered her eyes. He noticed a lot of stuff, didn't he? "No, it doesn't feel safe to me." If she didn't know any better, she could have sworn this made him curious.

"What does it feel like, then?"

She didn't want to say that it felt like they weren't supposed to be there, or like the temple wasn't supposed to have been found. That was defeatist to everything their field was about. "It feels like . . . ." She shrugged, finally settling on an explanation, but unsure if it sounded any better. "Like something's _hiding_ in there."

The professor's brow furrowed and then another moment stretched out before he seemed to realize he was keeping her. "I'm sorry, you can go."

Kagome crossed the camp site to where Ayame waited, pacing and checking her watch. She tried to shake the feeling that, for whatever reason, Professor Taisho was actually taking her impressions into consideration.

On an entirely different level, but no less jarring to her, was that for a moment, she thought there might've been hearts in her eyes.

* * *

**Character Surnames Explanation:**

_**Ryoushi**_**\- Hunter** (there was no exact translation for _slayer_); _**Nisou**_**\- Priestess** (_miko_ is translated as 'sorceress' and 'shrine maiden'); _**Souryo**_**\- Monk (**since _houshi,_ as Miroku is called in the manga, actually tr_a_nslates rather specifically to Buddhist Priest); _**Tabakaru- **_**Trickster** ('cause_ kitsune _would've just been too easy); _**Garou-**_** Hungry Wolf (**I wanted Ayame's name to differ from _Ookami_, which means 'wolf', as that is Kouga's name)


	2. Fractured Shadows

**(Repeated from Chapter One) 08/01/16: I apologize to any readers hoping there was new content. The false alarm could not be avoided.**

**I have pulled all chapters of this story for the purpose of editing, polishing &amp; reposting. I've long wanted to revise it into an original fiction work for publication purposes, so cleaning up the current version of the story is the _least_ I can do for its first readers. Due to the story's age, there are many little errors and hiccups that I've wanted to correct for a_ very_ long time. On top of that, I want you guys to have the best, most-polished form of this story in its current, "beta-version", to read and enjoy before I go forward with any attempt at revising it wholly into a publishable, stand-alone, original fiction work.**

**For those who've already read this story, don't worry. There is no 'new content' that you're missing out on if you choose to ignore the reposted chapters. They're really just a cleaner, more fluidly-read version of the same story. I did not pull the story_ entirely_, and am rebuilding it as the chapters are cleaned up, due to past issues I've encountered with plagiarism and harassment for reposting a fic I'd previously deleted (I am also keeping the full, unedited version of this story posted on Dokuga. com as I go through this process to also avoid the aforementioned problems).**

**For new readers, I will post 1 to 2 chapters weekly, figuring in time to work on my current WiPs in the _Harry Potter_ &amp; _MCU_ fandoms, and novels as I fix up _Stealing Heaven_.**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Fractured Shadows

She'd been having trouble sleeping. It wasn't a constant, every-moment-of-the-night sort of thing, simply that every so often, her current dream was interrupted. Kagome would find herself back on the shore, in that first moment she laid eyes on the temple. Once more, she relived that same, dreadful feeling.

She knew she simply hadn't fully acclimated to this completely foreign environment, but knowing the cause didn't banish the sensation, as she wished it would.

These troublesome nighttime imaginings were an odd contrast to the fact that, in reality, she found it easier to work in the cavern as time passed. Still, she felt that something was _lurking_, but it had become a sensation that she was able to push aside with less and less difficulty.

Two weeks had gone by, and she was beginning to wonder if perhaps ignoring that feeling had become simpler, because of how hard she was working to ignore something else, entirely. The _something else_ in question being that a little corner of her brain was batting around the idea that Professor Taisho Sesshomaru could _ever _be anything more than a mentor to her.

When he hunched over an artifact to point out the representation of an astrological symbol, explaining the significance of where it was positioned within the etching, and his shoulder leaned against hers for a moment, she knew it didn't register on him in the slightest. The times his fingertips brushed hers as they checked her sketches for inaccuracies didn't mean anything to him. Things like that were no more than accidents of being in close proximity.

Even when she'd nearly bounced right out of the pickup truck—which they learned too late had no working seat belts—by a particularly rocky path, and he'd put his arm around her to keep her firmly anchored inside of the vehicle, it had _only_ been a perfectly innocent safety measure.

Kagome shook her head, smoothing her dark hair back and chugging down a little more of the gods-awful thing that passed for coffee on-site, before returning her attention to the pieces she was cataloging. She simply refused to become like those ridiculous girls in her class—she would be _realistic._

She wouldn't act _any_ differently toward him. She would give _no_ indication, whatsoever, that she_ might_ be developing a crush on him.

_Might?_ A little voice mocked from the back of her head. _You went from completely platonic respect to wondering if he's a good kisser after one deep conversation._

Throwing her pencil down on the table she sat back, her face scrunching at own thoughts. She raised a hand, pinching tiredly between her brows. It wasn't _like_ that. Kagome knew she wasn't _actually_ thinking that way, but she kept worrying she might start—that she might _begin_ thinking that way, if she didn't stay grounded by poking fun at herself with such melodrama.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she glanced at her watch. Ten-thirty . . . almost everyone else had already called it a night. They tried to work with natural daylight as much as possible, which meant _very _early mornings, but she thought that perhaps if she really and truly wore herself down, she might fall into a deep, dreamless slumber.

"Hey."

Kagome started, glancing over her shoulder to see Sango at the tent's opening. "Why are you still up?"

Shrugging, Sango strolled over and leaned a hand on the table, casting a cursory glance over the catalog page. "I could ask you the same thing. Face it, girl—you've got all the makings of a proper workaholic."

Kagome laughed a little at that. "You just answered your own question then, huh? But that still doesn't explain why _you're_ up."

Sango shifted her weight, resting a hip against the table and folding her arms under her breasts. That posture alone had Kagome thinking that, somehow, within the next five minutes, she'd be asking herself _why me?_

"Well, see, Professor Taisho wanted me to go over some of the recordings from the temple interior, 'cause there's some anomalous images. I said I would get through it tonight, _but_ . . . ."

"Oh." Kagome slapped a hand to her head and let it drag down her face. "You're seeing Miroku again, aren't you?"

"If I can get someone to _volunteer_ to take over the footage review for me."

A small ache was beginning to form behind Kagome's forehead. Her eyes drifted closed for a moment before she allowed compassion for her friend win out over her irritation at being thought of as having nothing better to do.

The thought might be correct, but it was _still_ irritating. "What is this? The third time since last week?"

"Something like that," Sango said with another small shrug as she cast her gaze upward.

"You are aware he flirts with a _lot_ of girls, right?"

Sango frowned, arching a brow as she brought her attention back to Kagome. "Yeah, but so what? It's _just_ flirting."

Kagome stared back blankly. She hadn't made the comment to wound Sango, she was just perfectly aware of how territorial the girl could be.

"Okay, fine. I'm not _that_ okay with his flirting, but I _do_ know the difference between just flirting and _actuall_y doing something and . . . I think I'm starting to really like him. _Please _do this for me?"

Kagome was quiet for a moment as she darted her gaze around. She could always get back to her cataloging in the morning—unlike Sango, she'd not been crazy enough to give an estimate on how much work she'd get done in a set amount of time. She might get to sleep even later than she'd already planned, but at least she wouldn't have Sango staring daggers at her for the next few days for saying no.

"How much footage do I have to go over?"

Instantly, Sango was dragging Kagome up from her chair and out of the tent by her wrist. "Oh, thank you! Okay, I'll explain what you're looking for and how to note it, then I'm out. It's all pretty simple."

Kagome gave a tired nod, remembering dimly that she'd left her coffee behind. Just as well, really, since she suspected it was more the acrid taste than any dosing of caffeine that jolted exhaustion away. She allowed Sango to hustle her into the AV tent and push her gently into a folding chair. Already set on the table before the chair was a log book and a pencil.

The television screen in front of her showed a freeze frame of Professor Taisho in the midst of discussing something with the anthropology PhD from the French university . . . what was his name? _Devereaux, maybe?_

"Here we go. So you have an idea of the sort of things we've been picking up . . . ." Sango lifted the remote and rewound the footage by just a few frames before hitting play and pointing to the screen. "Okay, here Professor Taisho's talking to Professor Dubois."

_That's it, Dubois, _Kagome thought, leaning forward just a bit in the chair and picking up the pencil.

"Now, I cut the sound from this to make it easier to focus on the visual—and 'cause the audio seems clean of any anomalies—but, like . . . here."

As Kagome watched, Professor Taisho took a few steps across the floor and his shadow . . . didn't_ sync_. She leaned a little closer, felt her spine pull a little straighter. It moved with him as shadows should, but there was a _definite_ hiccup, as though it waited a moment before moving to catch up to where his shadow _should_ be. She thought she could feel the fine hairs of the back of her neck stand on end.

"Play that again."

Sango did as requested. The girls simply watched the fractured motion across the screen in silence, before pausing it, once more. "Okay, so you'll see that I already recorded this in the log. It's date, time, frame number—which you can catch more easily if you freeze it the second you see something—and a brief description of what the anomaly was. Like there, I put _Taisho—shadow stutters_. I know, it sounds stupid, but just do your best to describe the anomaly."

Kagome spoke without taking her eyes from the frozen image. "I know it's probably just a glitch with the recording speed, or something uneven in the background surface, but it's still kind of . . . ."

"Creepy?"

Kagome nodded.

Sango nodded back as she set the remote on the table beside the log book. "Yeah, it really kind of is, but I think of it like this—is a glitch in tech equipment _really_ any creepier than the fact that we're being trained for careers in a field that centers around playing with dead people and-slash-or the belongings, graves and homes of said departed folk?"

Kagome rubbed her lightly aching forehead. "I guess not. I'm just not sure which thing you put into perspective, just now—that the footage _isn't_ that creepy, or that archeology kind of _is_."

A thoughtful frown graced Sango's lips. "Hmm, that actually hadn't occurred to me."

"Am I looking for anything, specifically?" Kagome asked as she picked up the remote.

"I can't say, just yet," Sango replied with another small shrug. "But the logs will help pinpoint commonalities, like lighting defects, as you said, uneven surfaces . . . anything that could be reflecting the light in a way that would cause optical illusions that we're unaware of, so we can plan around them for the rest of the taping."

"How much of this do I have to go through?"

"Most of it's already been reviewed, so I'd say _maybe_ two hours more? See, the anomalies seem to only be in _that_ chamber. Since we've only had access to that area for a few days now, and, given how small our research team really is in respect to the size of the site—"

"It really only translates to several hours, at most."

"Exactly."

"So wait, is there anything recording in there, now?"

Brow furrowing, Sango spun on her heel and started toward the tent opening. "Nope. Which is why I said I'd do all the logging tonight, and the professor's going to have to reenact anything he comes across, in the meanwhile."

The recordings were to be shown to his and the other professors' classes, and—pending the weight and depth of their findings—turned into documentaries for far-reaching educational stations. Given that they were dealing with a subterranean temple, there was certainly the possibility this might hit international air waves.

"Doesn't he hate reenacting?" Kagome was pretty sure he'd said exactly that during one, if not more, of his lectures.

Sango looked over her shoulder at Kagome and gave a slow, painful-seeming nod. "Apparently _hate_ is too affectionate a term. When I told him what was happening with the footage, and he realized it meant that camera would have to be while it was figured out . . . . Man, if looks could kill, that camera probably would have melted into a puddle, right on the spot."

"Yikes." Kagome would've thought Professor Taisho didn't know _how _to get angry—he was always seemed_ so_ calm and centered.

"I'm just glad he wasn't looking at a living thing like that; would've charred the flesh right off 'em."

"Why not just swap in another camera in the meantime?" She already knew that the most obvious answer—to just move the damn camera—wasn't an option, as it had already been set in the only angle from which the entire chamber could be kept in the frame.

"I suggested that, but he said since it was just one night, if it's an effect of the area as opposed to a problem with the equipment—and since he's the only one out there this late tonight—it would just be a waste of time."

"You'd figure he wouldn't mind if it meant he wouldn't have to do something he hates."

Sango smirked. "Yeah, but he's a man—not a damned one of 'em makes sense. All right, I'm out. Night Kags, and thanks again, I _mean_ it."

Nodding, Kagome waved her off and turned back to the recording. "How many times do I have to ask her not to call me that?" she grumbled under her breath.

Against her own better judgment, she hit rewind. She didn't know quite why, but she _had _to see that again. Perhaps to prepare herself for other such anomalies, so that she wouldn't be startled by odder tricks of the light that might still lay ahead.

She hit play, almost unaware that she was once more leaning forward in the seat.

Professor Taisho turned toward Professor Dubois, speaking as he gestured toward something on a far wall. He took a step . . . two steps . . . three . . . and that was when the shadow jetted forward, falling perfectly into place behind the professor to mimic his movements, precisely as a proper shadow should.

Kagome frowned in thought. Perhaps the wall behind him dipped? A shallow alcove, not quite deep enough for the camera to pick up any difference in depth? Even thinking logically about it, the imagery was _still _creepy.

Repressing a shudder, she let it play through. Approximately ten minutes passed before she hit the pause button again, diligently ignoring that her heart had just dropped into her stomach. She rewound it a few frames and then let it play forward in slow motion.

Professor Taisho again assumed the lead in the muted conversation. He crossed the floor of the chamber again, and as he turned his head to look at Dubois over his shoulder . . . his eyes had turned black.

Forcing a small gulp down her throat, Kagome couldn't stop herself as she rose out of the chair and leaned forward across the table. Not only his eyes, but the _entire _area around them, from just beneath his brows the top of his cheek bones.

She carefully scanned the entire rest of the screen. Nothing else was effected, and it was only a _single_ frame of the footage. If she'd blinked, she would have missed it, entirely.

Sitting back down—albeit a tad shakily—she dutifully jotted down the date, time and frame number in the log book, followed by _Taisho—eyes unnaturally shadowed_.

She set the pencil down and, as she reached for the remote again, her gaze skimmed upward over the previous log entries. For a moment she paused, but then shook her head and went back to her viewing. They might only be lighting defects, nevertheless those split-seconds of marred shading were utterly unnerving.

This time it was nearly twice as long before she froze the image. This one was less clear, but possibly still of note. Professor Taisho was again gesturing toward something, but this time he stood still, his hands raised and for just a moment, again just a single frame, his fingers appeared . . . _clawed_? She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus a little better. When that didn't do much, she got up and ran back to the catalog table, returning in seconds—and completely winded—with a magnifying glass in hand

Examining the enlarged image, she felt she had no choice but to record this, too. Though, this one—_Taisho—fingers appear clawed—_felt ridiculous, but she _was_ told to describe the visuals as best she could.

Something a little bizarre occurred to her as the footage began to play forward, again. She paused the recording and tapped the pencil against her lips as she thought about it.

She'd seen three of these lighting anomalies, and Dubois never seemed effected. Perhaps it was because he was closer to the camera, while Professor Taisho lingered near the walls, practically skirting the shadows? But she'd thus far only seen Professor Taisho's name on the logs.

She turned her head minutely, blue eyes locking on the logbook for a moment, before she stuck the pencil behind her ear and picked it up. Running a finger up the page, she followed the brief descriptions all the way to the top and then flipped the page back, starting from the top and working her way down.

So few hours for so many entries and somehow . . . . _Taisho, Taisho, Taisho, Taisho . . . ._ She _wasn't_ imagining it—it _was_ only around her professor that these anomalies seemed to happen.

It was almost against her will that she started reading the descriptions. _Eye_s _glow_ . . . _Shadow faces opposite direction_ . . . . _Features unnaturally gaunt . . . . Appears to have aura. _There was even one that explained that his _ears_ had looked inhumanly elongated . . . .

Kagome frowned, shaking her head._ Weird . . . _and still creepy, but at least now her _clawed fingers_ notation didn't feel _quite_ so ridiculous. Of course, it was even weirder that it never effected anything else—or anyone else—in the frame.

But it always seemed to happen in the same place—or at least that appeared to be the case from the ones she'd viewed. _That _had to be the commonality Sango was hoping for! She still had the rest of the footage to comb through, though, just in case.

Nodding to herself, she picked up the remote again and hit play. Several uneventful minutes passed and she found herself relaxing.

"Hey!"

The unexpected voice made Kagome nearly jump out of her skin. Pressing a palm to her chest, she spun in her seat.

"Oh, I'm sorry, didn't mean to scare you." At the entrance of the tent stood one of their PhDs . . . . She couldn't remember _who_ he actually was at the moment, which was probably a testament to how badly she needed some real coffee or some real sleep, whichever blessed her first. "You're one of Taisho's interns, right? Um . . . Ms. Higurashi?"

Her smile was small and perhaps a tad uneasy as she nodded. "Yeah. Can I help you?"

"Actually, yes." He stepped inside, pulling weighty-looking book from a leather pack on his hip and holding it out to her. His hand trembled ever so slightly and the bags under his eyes had bags of their own. "I'm going to turn in for the night, been up for two days straight translating. I was hoping you could just make sure Professor Taisho gets this tonight."

She couldn't help flipping through some pages and lightly skimming them. This guy must really think Professor Taisho trusted his interns implicitly, she realized, because he didn't bat an eye at her scrutiny. "Was the text_ that_ hard to decipher?"

The man shrugged. "Yes and no. It's not the language itself that was difficult, it's just that _this_ was a very short-lived dialect and it was written in . . . let's see, what's the best way to put it?" He seemed to take a moment to think it over and then nodded to himself. "It had a deliberate flourish, almost like Shakespeare . . . well, comparatively speaking. So, I had to first translate the text itself and then actually figure out what it was talking about."

She started to set the book down, but he frowned in concern, his brow furrowing. "He wanted to know the_ minute_ I was done."

Now she _was_ beginning to feel put-upon. "Then why didn't you get him on your walkie?"

"He's at the site, by the time he gets here, I'll have passed out on the ground from exhaustion. Not the greatest impression to make on a colleague, _especially _one with his standing."

"Ah, okay, then." She was still irked, but she would probably feel the same way in his shoes—her professor _might_ seem calm and collected all the time, but in the same turn, he definitely gave off an air that made those around him not want to disappoint him, and it had precious little to do with his standing in the academic community.

"Thank you. Good nigh—hey, is that you?"

"Hmm?" Kagome turned to follow his gaze.

Sure enough, she saw herself on the screen. She'd completely forgotten that she'd ventured to the site earlier that day to have Professor Taisho sign off on a cataloging error that had been corrected. That earthen-clay doll had actually been in two-hundred-forty-seven pieces, not two-hundred-forty-eight.

Kagome watched numbly as the professor took the catalog from her hands and turned away to sign it, and—for just the briefest moment—the fingers of her shadow appeared to reach forward . . . to brush his shadow.

Her own fingers felt almost cold as she reached down. On a strange sort of auto-pilot, she picked up the remote, rewound the recording a few frames and hit play, freezing it again when the anomaly occurred. Barely aware of what she was doing, she leaned forward and jotted in the log book, _Higurashi—shadow extends beyond subject's movement._

When she looked back up at the screen, she realized . . . it was in the _same _spot that all of the professor's anomalous images had taken place.

"Is that a trick of the light?"

She looked over her shoulder to see the linguist still hovering. "Huh?"

"Well, your shadow _looks_ like it stretches out, but it's barely even a second . . . maybe there's a shallow dip in the wall behind you?"

It was comforting to have a person unfamiliar with the issue offer the same logical conclusion as she had. Instantly, even the images that had seemed not so easily dismissed were put into perspective. Dubois didn't react at all to any recorded anomalies, so it wasn't something he'd witnessed, despite his direct attention on Professor Taisho in nearly every instance. She'd been correct earlier—all of the unusual images _had_ occurred over exactly the same stretch of background surface. Visual recording equipment was capable of registering a greater range of visible light than the human eye . . . .

Well, okay, AV technical problems were_ hardly _her strong suit, but she understood that the answer had to be something to do with the way the camera picked up the lighting against _that_ wall, in combination with how the human mind made patterns out of images or sounds that lacked a sense of order. So it wasn't _only_ the lighting, but how the watcher's brain interpreted images that simply didn't make sense.

This whole mess could probably be corrected by a measure as small as repositioning the lanterns.

She let out a long sigh, feeling warmth flood back into her fingers. "That's what we're trying to figure out, actually. I'm sorry to have kept you. Good night."

"Good night." And like that he was gone, and Kagome was alone, again.

She sat for a while in the silence of the tent, staring at the book the PhD had dropped off. That poor man had worked himself to exhaustion—she certainly hoped Professor Taisho knew what he was doing, putting so much pressure on a colleague.

Half-heartedly, she picked up her walkie, fishing a list of channel frequencies from a pocket of her drab-green cargo pants. Each group changed their dialing frequency based on their current location to prevent interference or miscommunication.

She dialed the site frequency—thinking it would be a miracle if she got through, since the professor was in a structure underground—and hit the call button.

A loud, static-laced whine filled the air and Kagome dropped the device immediately, clamping her hands over her ears until the ringing in them ceased. Pushing up from her chair in an angry motion, she scooped up her walkie from the ground and set it on the table, just_ barely_ refraining from slamming it down.

She tapped her foot, impatient with the sudden hindrance as she thought over what to do.

She could just keep working until the professor returned from the site, but who knew how long that would be? She might have fallen asleep at a work table by then and miss him entirely—Kagome didn't want to be the one he held responsible for receiving a potentially important translation _hours _after it had been completed instead of minutes. She could wait at the entrance to the camp so she wouldn't miss him . . . . Again, for who knew how long, and with the consequence of making herself feel just a wee bit stalker-ish.

Sighing heavily, she buried her face in her hands for a long moment. She had no other choice, she'd have to go to the site and hand it to Professor Taisho, directly.

It had taken a bit longer than she'd predicted, but at last she thought to herself, _Why me?_


	3. Moments of Revelation

**Chapter Three**

Moments of Revelation

Untying the tan button-down from around her waist, she pulled it on over the thin, ribbed tank-top she wore and then snatched up the book. Just an hour ago, she'd wanted to avoid sleep for as long as she could, _now_ all she wanted to do was climb into her cot, yank her sleeping bag closed over her head and tell everyone to go away.

She almost didn't want to take that damned treacherous walkie with her, but she grudgingly picked it up and clipped it on her belt, knowing the interference a moment ago would likely pass. Despite all of the more environment-focused safety measures in place, she knew Sango would never forgive her if she ventured into the jungle with no way to call for assistance.

A few minutes later, she was traversing the slender carved path, kept safe from any curious animals by a chemical mixture used to treat the ground—harmless to the vegetation and wild life, but_ just_ pungent enough to deter potentially dangerous creatures from the immediate area. Every yard, a pair of glow rods illuminated the wilderness, her careful progress aided by the light of her hand-held lantern.

While she still wasn't fearful of the jungle surrounding her, she was unsettled by the eerie green hue the rods cast on everything. Before she knew it, she had dropped her gaze, watching her feet and counting her steps in her head to keep her mind from wandering. The last thing she needed was for her imagination to run away with her.

She was aware that it wouldn't only be her immediate vicinity that might cause such a thing to happen, either, but the unnerving visual anomalies she'd been duped into sitting through. _Get it together, Kagome, you're a scientist and you_ _already _know_ what made those images_. She paused, lifting her gaze just long enough to gauge how far she was from the cavern.

Much to her relief, she was almost at the spot where the path began to curve around the mountain.

"Kagome," she said to herself in an angry mutter, "perception is reality. If Grandpa was here, he'd have run over to the temple and purified every inch of the place, and you know what? The next reel of footage from that chamber would _still_ have _exactly_ the same sort of creepy defects as the ones you just saw." Her bizarre sense of familiarity with the area notwithstanding, of course, she was much more inclined to believe Professor Taisho's reasoning in that matter than in some other-worldly cause.

As she pivoted on her heel, turning herself to face the mouth of the cave, she paused.

For just a moment, as she stared into that sparsely illuminated darkness, she was overcome with the feeling that someone was standing behind her. The sensation was there and gone in a blink, yet so strong she could have _sworn_ a physical presence had been with her. Whatever it had been was gone now—she was certain of that—but she couldn't stop herself from casting a glance over her shoulder.

Her knees sagged a little beneath her as she confirmed that she was indeed alone, but the awareness of how real—how living, how _breathing_—that presence had felt sent a smattering of goosebumps rising across her skin.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she faced forward again, shaking off the feeling only to find her motions stilling once more. Lifting already widened blue eyes, she caught the slimmest glimpse of the moon through a break in the canopy above. The gleaming, pearly white waxing crescent was almost hypnotic, the tapered ends appearing oddly sharp and elongated.

As beautiful as it was, she couldn't help thinking that there seemed something unnatural about it.

_Okay, Kagome. Now you're _really _being stupid. _She forced a laugh at herself. _I__t's _just_ the moon, there's noth_— It felt like a chilled fingertip dragged lightly along her spine.

She bolted instantly, darting down into the tunnel, a hand clamped over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. Kagome might be running to hide behind the professor—from nothing more than her own imagination, she mocked herself even as she ran—but she had _no_ desire to give him the negative impression of hearing her shriek all the way to him, like some frightened elementary-schooler.

The winding tunnel seemed longer than she remembered, her heart hammering in her chest with every step. She felt certain her entire ribcage must be rattling with the force of it by the time her feet hit the underground shore.

Common sense slammed into Kagome as she brought herself to a skittering halt a few meters before the temple. She _couldn't_ go running in there at top speed like this! Her body pitched forward from the waist up and she braced her free hand on her knees as she caught her breath forcibly.

She _couldn't _let her professor see her looking even remotely freaked out, because then he'd ask why and she'd have to tell him . . . .

Straightening up, she inhaled deeply and smoothed her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears. She didn't _have_ to tell him the honest answer, she reasoned with herself as she took plodding steps across the shore and started up the wide, flat stone stairs that led into the temple's ante chamber. However, if he saw her like _that_, he would ask what was wrong, and she already knew she would feel _irrationally_ compelled to tell him the truth.

She drew in another deep breath, through her nostrils this time, letting the rich earthy smells of damp air and salt water ground her. He would listen patiently to everything she had to say and then . . . he would decide that she was having some sort of breakdown and that she clearly wasn't ready for field work.

He'd have her sent home a mere two and a half weeks into the excavation.

That thought was sobering. Nodding to no one at all, Kagome took another moment to straighten herself out—tugging at corners of fabric and dusting her clothes off, whether or not they needed it- and then stepped into the temple.

Professor Taisho was in, what she was beginning to think of as, _the problem chamber_ when she found him. His long, sleek silver hair was tied back, the length of it falling past his waist as he knelt beside an altar. They'd all noted how odd it was that this temple had a handful of them—and they'd not even been through the entire structure, yet—and that in _this_ room, the altar was positioned differently from those they'd seen thus far.

His back was to her, his field journal in one hand as he tipped his head this way and that, running the fingers of his other hand over the elaborate illustrations carved into the base of the altar.

"Still a mystery?" she asked in a low voice, not really surprised when she didn't startle him—he always seemed to know when she was there. He probably had an acute spatial awareness and could tell when anyone was near, she thought.

Sitting back on his heels, Professor Taisho set his notebook on the floor and rubbed his hands over his face. "Yes, but it's still early. We may not even have an answer in _this_ room. There could be others off-set like this one and this is just part of some pattern we can't see, yet. This," he said, pausing briefly as he turned his head to take in the area, "is a _strange _place."

His eyes moved from the far walls to rest on hers and after a mute second she arched a brow.

"Shouldn't you have already turned in for the evening?" he finally asked.

She couldn't help laughing a little—somehow the frightening moment she'd had at the mouth of the cave felt very far, suddenly. "Apparently, when you stay awake—and _don't _have your PhD yet—people like to borrow you to assist them." She held up the book with which she'd been entrusted in way of elaboration.

The professor pushed himself up to stand and turned on his heel to face her, a flicker of a half-smile playing on his lips as he pointed. "Is that what I hope it is?"

Kagome held the book out to him, nodding as he slid the small tome from her fingers and immediately started flipping through pages. "From what I was told, _yes. _Poor guy is probably going to sleep for the next two days, but he did seem pretty satisfied with himself."

Professor Taisho's shoulders shook ever so slightly in a brief, silent chuckle as his eyes roved the scribble-laden pages. "I hope he didn't make me sound like a slave driver. He was just as eager to put a rush on the translation as I was."

Kagome nodded, unable to stop her gaze from going to the section of wall where the lighting defects had occurred. Strange, but from here it didn't look as though it dipped, or curved at all. Perhaps the difference in depth was so slight, one had to be right in front of it to notice.

The professor's eyes flickered up from the pages to see the girl staring at the far wall, opposite the altar. A corner of her mouth was pulled tight to one side, creating a dimple in her cheek. He recognized that expression for the classroom. Higurashi Kagome was puzzling over something.

"What's fascinating you this time?"

She shrugged, turning her head to find him watching her, silver eyebrows lifted just a bit in question. "Sorry, I just . . . ." She let out a small, soft laugh at herself, stepping over to the altar and leaning back against it as she turned to face the wall. "All those visual anomalies occur in the same spot against _that_ wall. I'm wondering what it is about that section that's causing it."

He stepped to one side, mirroring her posture as he set the book down to rest his hips back against the altar and fold his arms across his chest. "All in the same spot, really?"

"Mm-hmm."

"That's good news, should make the issue easier to solve, then. I'm just wondering why _you _know about that, since your friend Ryoushi was supposed to handle the footage review."

Blue eyes went wide as she scrambled for precisely the right answer—she didn't want to get Sango in trouble. "Well, _I_ . . . volunteered to do it. See, um, she—she had something that . . . I just didn't want her to miss out because . . ." She could _hear_ herself babbling, but she just couldn't seem to _stop. _"There was this thing and she wanted to go, but she wouldn't 'cause um she had to work—" And she was perfectly aware she was nodding like an idiot after every word, and gesturing vaguely but emphatically with both hands which, _again_, she just couldn't seem to stop doing. "So I said I'd do it. The work, I mean, not go to the . . . uh, _thing_ and—"

"Stop." Yhe professor interrupted gently, holding up one hand as he pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly with the thumb and forefinger of the other. "Two things," he said as he dropped his hands and looked at her. "One—I know about Ryoushi and Miroku. Two—you are a _terrible_ liar."

Her face fell instantly and her shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry I just . . . ." She sighed. "I know Miroku's _not_ in a position that prevents him from, um, fraternizing with students, but he _is_ your assistant and I didn't know if maybe it would be the sort of thing you would frown on."

Professor Taisho shrugged, his brow furrowing lightly. "As long as an off-hours relationship doesn't affect their work, then I don't feel it's my place to step in. In this case, it _could _be seen as an interference, but as Ryoushi found a competent substitute, it can be allowed to slide."

"You're speaking as if you're our boss instead of our teacher," she observed aloud.

"I suppose that's because on site that's how I actually see you all. Understand that here, you're not a _student,_ Higurashi. You are a future colleague—and I'm the one honored with making that future happen."

Kagome knew she probably looked dazzled, but she couldn't help it. Certainly she'd always felt honored to have Taisho Sesshomaru as her professor—she never imagined he felt even a shred of that in return.

"Wow," she managed to say after a moment that she knew wasn't nearly as long in passing as it had felt. "I don't think I'd have thought of it like that, but I guess it is true."

"That aside, I'd thought you would be more concerned for Ryoushi due to Miroku's . . . _friendly_ nature with the female students."

She felt her eyes widen, again. "You know about Miroku's flir—" Her words trailed off at the look of mild amusement on the professor's face. "Of course, you do. It's not like I'm not worried that she might get hurt, but . . . I don't know, she's just really into him and there's that old saying about love being blind." She offered a tiny shrug. "I think in some cases, it's deaf and dumb, too."

"So I've heard," he responded offhandedly.

The girl's dark, arched brows slowly inched their way up her forehead.

He shook his head at her look of obvious disbelief, giving a short chuckle at himself. He was uncertain of when the conversation had taken a personal turn, but oddly at ease with the change of direction.

"Oh, no it's not as though I've been living under a rock. Work." He gestured around to the chamber. "_Our_ work has simply always taken precedence in my life. When opportunity has knocked . . . I've been rushing out the back door to get to a lecture."

She giggled a little at that, somewhat in spite of herself, as she remembered what Sango had said to her earlier. "I might be the same way, some day. Apparently I have all the makings of a proper workaholic. If I can't find someone who can understand how important this all is to me . . . ." She shook her head, giving a considerate, yet almost sad grin. "I'll be a spinster, but at least I'll be an accomplished spinster."

His brow furrowed thoughtfully, amber eyes roving the chamber for a few seconds. "Then I suppose Ryoushi and Miroku are lucky to find themselves in a relationship with someone who understands from the beginning the demands of a career in this field."

They'd both been staring off, but his words struck a chord within her and she brought her eyes to him. As though he felt the weight of it, he turned his head, meeting her gaze. They shared a moment of quiet contemplation, though neither seemed to know what was really going through their own head.

She wondered if they waited just long enough, would she see a flicker of comprehension flicker in those amber depths? It was a wonder that was in danger of setting off butterflies in her stomach.

_Why_ didn't she just excuse herself and go back to camp?

Understanding that the continued silence was only serving to make the situation awkward, he snatched the leather bound journal up from the altar and flipped the front cover open. "Shall we see if the answer to this place is in these pages, future colleague?"

He knew he'd taken the right tack—her expression lit up, losing any trace of that skittish uncertainty he thought he'd spied for just a moment.

"What, really?" She'd be one of the first people to know what this place was? The very notion was overwhelming.

Professor Taisho gave a half-nod. "Well, if that's what this says." He once more gestured toward the walls with is free hand. "Of course it could always be something truly dramatic . . . like a recipe list."

Kagome didn't know how to respond to that. " Do you always get like this when you work into the wee hours?"

Blinking, he checked his watch and then turned his attention back to the book. "It's only just after midnight. I get worse."

The chamber fell quiet again as he skimmed the scribbled pages. During that time, a handful of varying expressions flitted across his face. "Hmm," he said at last.

"Is something wrong?"

"This place . . . is a tomb."

She was very confused by that—it was a notion contradictory to many things she'd learned about this culture, already. "But I thought Mezzo Americans used temples for worship and sacrifice; that they kept their burial places separate."

The professor nodded. "It seems this _was_ a place of worship and sacrifice." He tipped his head to one side for a moment before going on. "_Unique_ sacrifices, and _then_ it became a tomb."

Her face scrunched up in thought. "Worship of what? We haven't seen any religious iconography, or signs of tribute to the native deities."

His eyes snapped up from the book to lock on hers and something in his look had a shiver threatening to run up her spine. "That's because this temple—it's very existence—would have been _blasphemy_ to these people. It was built by a cult who worshiped a demon."

The revelation was jarring, but just like that, Kagome's brain was struggling to comprehend the oddities this place had presented her with, thus far. "That's why it was built in a place that was so difficult to get to." Her fingers snapped reflexively as another piece of the puzzle slid into place. "Maybe that even explains the uniqueness of the text. Like it isn't _actually _its own dialect, but a deliberate shift in meaning or word usage—a code only the cult members would readily understand."

"Very good," he said, his voice somewhat numb. _This_ was why she was his favorite student.

"But wait . . . then _who's_ this tomb for?"

A thoughtful frown tugged at the corners of Professor Taisho's mouth as those amber eyes became icy. "For the demon."


End file.
